Refinement Database

Database on Refinement of Housing, Husbandry, Care, and Use of Animals in Research

This database, created in 2000, is updated every four months with newly published scientific articles, books, and other publications related to improving or safeguarding the welfare of animals used in research.

Tips for using the database:

  • This landing page displays all of the publications in the database.
  • Use the drop-down menus to filter these publications by Animal Type, Setting, and/or Topic.
  • Clicking on a parent category (e.g., Rodent) will include publications relating to all the items in that category (e.g., Chinchilla, Gerbil, Guinea Pig, etc.).
  • You may also add a keyword to further narrow your search.
  • Please note that at this time, only publications dated 2010 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Animal Type and Topic, and only publications dated 2020 or later (with some exceptions) can be filtered by Setting. Most publications older than 2010 can only be searched by keyword. 
Wolfensohn, S., Shotton, J., Bowley, H. et al. 2018. Assessment of welfare in zoo animals: Towards optimum quality of life. Animals 8(7), 110.

Zoos are required to maintain a high standard of animal welfare, and this can be assessed using a combination of resource-based and animal-based indices usually divided into behavioural indicators, physiological indicators and clinical/pathological signs. Modern...

Battini, M., Barbieri, S., Vieira, A. et al. 2018. The use of qualitative behaviour assessment for the on-farm welfare assessment of dairy goats. Animals 8(7), 123.

This research investigated whether using qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) with a fixed list of descriptors may be related to quantitative animal- (ABM) and resource-based (RBM) measures included in the AWIN (Animal Welfare Indicators) welfare assessment...

Chotard, H., Ioannou, S., Davila-Ross, M. 2018. Infrared thermal imaging: Positive and negative emotions modify the skin temperatures of monkey and ape faces. American Journal of Primatology 80(5), e22863.

Facial thermography has enabled researchers to noninvasively and continuously measure the changes of a range of emotional states in humans. The present work used this novel technology to study the effect of positive and negative...

Jayson, S., Harding, L., Michaels, C. J. et al. 2018. Development of a body condition score for the mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax). Zoo Biology 37(3), 196–205.

The Critically Endangered mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) has undergone drastic population decline due to habitat loss, hunting, invasive species, and chytridiomycosis. In response, several partner institutions initiated a conservation breeding program. It is important...

Brando, S., Buchanan-Smith, H. M. 2018. The 24/7 approach to promoting optimal welfare for captive wild animals. Behavioural Processes 156, 83-95.

We have an ethical responsibility to provide captive animals with environments that allow them to experience good welfare. Husbandry activities are often scheduled for the convenience of care staff working within the constraints of the...

Ahloy-Dallaire, J., Espinosa, J., Mason, G. 2018. Play and optimal welfare: Does play indicate the presence of positive affective states? Behavioural Processes 156, 3-15.

Play is commonly used to assess affective states in both humans and non-human animals. Play appears to be most common when animals are well-fed and not under any direct threats to fitness. Could play and...

Teng, K. T.-Y., Devleesschauwer, B., Maertens De Noordhout, C. et al. 2018. Welfare-Adjusted Life Years (WALY): A novel metric of animal welfare that combines the impacts of impaired welfare and abbreviated lifespan. PLOS ONE 13(9), e0202580.

Currently, separate measures are used to estimate the impact of animal diseases on mortality and animal welfare. This article introduces a novel metric, the Welfare-Adjusted Life Year (WALY), to estimate disease impact by combining welfare...

Unakafov, A. M., Möller, S., Kagan, I. et al. 2018. Using imaging photoplethysmography for heart rate estimation in non-human primates. PLOS ONE 13(8), e0202581.

For humans and for non-human primates heart rate is a reliable indicator of an individual’s current physiological state, with applications ranging from health checks to experimental studies of cognitive and emotional state. In humans, changes...

Ekesbo, I., Gunnarsson, S. 2018. Farm Animal Behaviour: Characteristics for Assessment and Welfare (2nd ed). CABI, Wallingford, UK.

Completely updated and revised, and with a new author team, this second edition of Farm Animal Behaviour continues to provide essential information on normal and stereotypic behaviors in a wide variety of farm animals to...

Guesgen, M. J., Bench, C. 2017. What can kinematics tell us about the affective states of animals? Animal Welfare 26( 4), 383-397.

An animal's welfare state is intrinsically linked to its affective state. Evidence suggests that sentient, conscious animals can experience a range of affective states, such as pain, fear or boredom as well as positive affects...

Burn, C. C. 2017. Bestial boredom: a biological perspective on animal boredom and suggestions for its scientific investigation. Animal Behaviour 130, 141-151.

Boredom is likely to have adaptive value in motivating exploration and learning, and many animals may possess the basic neurological mechanisms to support it. Chronic inescapable boredom can be extremely aversive, and understimulation can harm...

Barrows, M. 2017. Welfare assessment in zoo animals. Veterinary Record 181(6), 141-142.

The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums animal welfare strategy encourages zoos to integrate sound animal welfare principles into all activities and recommends assessment based on the Five Domains model of animal welfare. This model...

Justice, W. S. M., O'Brien, M. F., Szyszka, O. et al. 2017. Adaptation of the animal welfare assessment grid (AWAG) for monitoring animal welfare in zoological collections. Veterinary Record 181(6), 143.

Animal welfare monitoring is an essential part of zoo management and a legal requirement in many countries. Historically, a variety of welfare audits have been proposed to assist zoo managers. Unfortunately, there are a number...

Krebs, B. L., Torres, E., Chesney, C. et al. 2017. Applying behavioral conditioning to identify anticipatory behaviors. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 20(2), 155-175.

The ability to predict regular events can be adaptive for nonhuman animals living in an otherwise unpredictable environment. Animals may exhibit behavioral changes preceding a predictable event; such changes reflect anticipatory behavior. Anticipatory behavior is...

Mellor, D. Operational details of the five domains model and its key applications to the assessment and management of animal welfare. Animals 7(8), 60.

In accord with contemporary animal welfare science understanding, the Five Domains Model has a significant focus on subjective experiences, known as affects, which collectively contribute to an animal’s overall welfare state. Operationally, the focus of...

Reed, B., Beatham, S., Carter, S. et al. 2017. Report of a RSPCA/APHA meeting on the welfare of wild animals used in research. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(1), 13-25. [Meeting Report]

This is a report of a one-day meeting jointly convened by the RSPCA and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), which brought together around 70 researchers, veterinarians, animal technologists, regulators and others with an...

Hawkins, P., McNeilly, A., Watson, J. et al. 2017. Report of the 2016 RSPCA/UFAW Rodent and Rabbit Welfare Group meeting. Animal Technology and Welfare 16(2), 77-86.

The RSPCA/UFAW Rodent (and now Rabbit) Welfare Group held a one-day meeting on 1 November 2016 at the University of Edinburgh and was attended by 70 delegates. Presentation topics included refinements in blood sampling rodents...

Moszuti, S. A., Wilkinson, A., Burman, O. H. P. 2017. Response to novelty as an indicator of reptile welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 193, 98-103.

Whilst a great deal of research has been focused on identifying ways to assess the welfare of captive mammals and birds, there is comparatively little knowledge on how reptilian species are affected by captivity, and...

Veasey, J. S. 2017. In pursuit of peak animal welfare; the need to prioritize the meaningful over the measurable. Zoo Biology 36(6), 413–425.

Despite the diversity of animal welfare definitions, most recognise the centrality of the feelings of animals which are currently impossible to measure directly. As a result, animal welfare assessment is heavily reliant upon the indirect...

Whitham, J. C., Miller, L. J. 2016. Using technology to monitor and improve zoo animal welfare. Animal Welfare 25(4), 395-409.

While the international zoological community is committed to enhancing the welfare of individual animals, researchers have yet to take full advantage of the tools available for non-invasively tracking behavioural and physiological indicators of welfare. We...

Bugnon, P., Heimann, M., Thallmair, M. 2016. What the literature tells us about score sheet design. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 414-417.

Score sheets are an essential tool of animal welfare. They allow transparent assessments to be made of animal health and behavior during animal experiments and they define interventions when deviations from normal status are detected...

Drude, N., Pawlowsky, K., Tanaka,H. et al. 2016. Severity assessment in rabbits after partial hepatectomy: Part II. Laboratory Animals 50(6), 468-475.

Although the recognition of pain, distress and discomfort has already been described in 1985 by Morton and Griffiths there is still very little known about the establishment of score sheets especially, regarding postsurgical pain and...

Johnson, C. 2016. Research tools for the measurement of pain and nociception. Animals 6(11), 71.

There are many ways in which pain in animals can be measured and these are based on a variety of phenomena that are related to either the perception of pain or alterations in physical or...

Mellor, D. 2016. Moving beyond the “Five Freedoms” by updating the “Five Provisions” and introducing aligned “Animal Welfare Aims”. Animals 6(10), 59.

Although the Five Freedoms paradigm has been very influential in shaping animal welfare thinking for the last two decades, it has two key disadvantages. First, the focus on “freedom” from a range of negative experiences...

Wark, J. D., Amendolagine, L., Lukas, K. E. et al. 2016. Fecal glucocorticoid metabolite responses to management stressors and social change in four species of callitrichine monkeys. Primates 57(2), 267-277.

The use of enzyme immunoassays (EIA) for the non-invasive measurement of glucocorticoids provides a valuable tool for monitoring health and welfare in sensitive species. We validated methods for measuring fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGM) using the...